Backyard Ultra Team World Championship 2026: Results, Leaderboard, and a New 124-Yard World Record
π Race Recap
Backyard Ultra Team World Championship 2026
The 2026 Backyard Ultra Team World Championship ended on Thursday, October 22, after 124 hours of running, and it delivered two big stories. Team USA came from behind to win the team title with 1,120 yards. And in Belgium, Ivo Steyaert and Merijn Geerts ran 124 yards side by side, about 517 miles each, to share a new Backyard Ultra world record.
Here’s how the format works, the final leaderboard, and the runners behind the results.
How the Team World Championship Works
A backyard ultra has no finish line. Every hour, on the hour, runners start a 4.167-mile (6.706 km) loop called a “yard.” Finish it within the hour and you can rest until the next bell. Miss the cutoff, or don’t start the next loop, and you’re out. Traditionally, the last runner standing wins, but only if they complete one final yard alone.
The team championship, held every two years, uses a satellite format. Each country runs its own race on a home course, and every race starts at the same moment. This year that was 7:00 a.m. Central on Saturday, October 17. Each nation fields 15 runners, and every yard each of them completes counts toward the team score. There are no throwaway scores, so depth matters as much as having one superstar.
This year, 67 nations started. The U.S. team ran at Bell Buckle, Tennessee, the home course of race creator Laz Lake, and Belgium ran in Retie.
Final Leaderboard: Top 10 Nations
| Place | Country | Team Yards | Last Runner(s) Standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 1,120 | Mark Dowdle, 107 |
| 2 | Australia | 1,069 | Dan Camac, 87 |
| 3 | Belgium | 1,058 | Ivo Steyaert & Merijn Geerts, 124 each |
| 4 | Japan | 1,038 | Kazuhiro Kawahata, 105 |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 939 | Dave Phillips, 90 |
| 6 | France | 889 | Christophe Baud, 101 |
| 7 | Poland | 840 | MichaΕ Sitarek, 83 |
| 8 | New Zealand | 834 | Sam Harvey, 77 |
| 9 | Canada | 830 | Michael Serani, 82 |
| 10 | Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN) | 732 | Ivan Zaborsky, 81 |
Results are provisional until the organizers confirm them. Spain’s race was stopped at yard 25 by severe weather and will be re-run, so Spain has no final team total yet.
The Podium
1. United States β 1,120 Yards
Team USA won by 51 yards, and they did it from behind. After yard 57, the Americans were only fourth with 812 team yards, behind Australia, Japan, and Belgium. What carried them was depth: eight Americans were still running after yard 80, when Australia was down to two and Belgium to three. The U.S. drew level with Australia at yard 87 and led from yard 88 to the end.
2. Australia β 1,069 Yards
Australia led for most of the race and was 42 yards up after yard 78. But its depth ran out first: the team was down to two runners during yard 79, and Dan Camac won Australia’s race at yard 87, one ahead of Ben Nicholls. Former world record holder Phil Gore was not part of Australia’s team this year.
3. Belgium β 1,058 Yards
Belgium spent the middle of the race behind the U.S., Australia, and Japan. Then Steyaert and Geerts simply kept going. Every yard they added counted for the team, and Belgium passed Japan for third at yard 115, long after most of the world’s national races had ended.
Team USA’s Top Performers
Mark Dowdle β 107 yards (about 446 miles). Dowdle was the last American standing. After Jon Noll stopped following yard 106, Dowdle completed yard 107 alone to win the U.S. race, after 107 straight hours on the Bell Buckle course.
Jon Noll β 106 yards. Noll, one of the team’s pre-race headliners, pushed Dowdle to the final hours and finished as the U.S. assist.
The depth that won it. Behind them, Nicholas Steel (94), Greg Fall (92), Levi Yoder (86), Nick Petterson (84), and Harvey Lewis (83) all went deep, and Megan Smyth was the last American woman running at 82 yards. That middle of the roster is what turned a fourth-place position at yard 57 into a world title.
Belgium’s Record-Setting Pair
Ivo Steyaert and Merijn Geerts β 124 yards each (about 516.7 miles, or 831.5 km). From yard 107 onward, the two Belgians were the last runners left anywhere in the world. They kept answering the bell through Wednesday night and both finished yard 120 early Thursday morning, one past Phil Gore’s previous world record of 119 yards, set at Dead Cow Gully in Queensland in June 2025.
They kept going to 124 yards, then stopped together on Thursday, October 22. Neither started yard 125. Because neither completed a yard alone, Belgium’s race has no individual winner, and the two share the new record of 124 yards.
Why 124? According to the Dutch edition of Runner’s World, after passing Gore’s 119 the pair kept going until they had also passed 123 yards, the distance Russia’s Dmitry Klimov ran at the Biotropika Backyard Ultra in June 2026, and then decided not to start yard 125. Klimov’s 123 was briefly reported as a new world record, but it was never recognized: backyard ultra founder Lazarus Lake voided every result from that event after video showed non-competitors, including media and support crew, on the course with runners, which breaks the rule that only competitors may be on the loop. Steyaert and Geerts haven’t said publicly whether 123 was their target, but their 124 now tops it either way.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because they’ve done it before. At the 2022 team championship, Steyaert and Geerts finished together at 101 yards, then a world record. In 2024, they stopped together again at 110 yards, this time alongside teammate Frank Gielen. This year they pushed the mark 14 yards further. According to Canadian Running, Geerts is 52 and Steyaert is 56.
Other Notable Results
Japan just missed the podium. Kazuhiro Kawahata won Japan’s race with 105 yards after Kengo Takahashi stopped at 104, and Japan finished just 20 yards behind Belgium.
France went past 100. Christophe Baud won France’s race with 101 yards, after Julien Pierlot stopped at 100.
Canada set a national best. Canada finished ninth with 830 yards, a new national team best, led by Michael Serani’s 82.
A wave of national records. Many national winners went past their country’s listed national record, though the official record table hadn’t been updated at the time of writing.
What’s Next
The championship alternates between team and individual years. Next up is the individual Big’s Backyard Ultra World Championship in 2027, back at Bell Buckle, Tennessee, where the world’s best will try to take the record past 124.
A Note on Our Sources
Team totals, individual yards, and race details come from race coverage by Canadian Running, Fit Foundation, and Multiday Running, which compiled results from the organizer’s live tracking. Details on the voided Russian result come from Marathon Handbook and Runner’s World Netherlands. All results remain provisional until the organizers publish official confirmation.
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